The best leadership → rarely comes from authority. In fact, authority often gets in the way. When you’re not someone’s manager, when you can’t mandate or escalate, all that’s left is influence. Things move not because you asked them to, but because people believe in what you’re saying.

Authority can force compliance. It can’t create conviction. That’s why the most meaningful leadership shows up cross-functionally, where no one owes you anything and yet progress still happens.

We also overestimate the importance of direction. Leadership is usually portrayed as knowing where to go and pulling everyone along. But how do you know you have the best idea? Most “direction” is just confidence dressed up as certainty. The strongest leaders I’ve seen aren’t obsessed with being right. They’re obsessed with surfacing the right idea. They create space for disagreement, slow down decisions, and resist the urge to steer prematurely. Leadership isn’t pointing forward — it’s making sure the room can think clearly.

This naturally leads to empowerment, which is far rarer than people think. Empowerment isn’t delegation with supervision. It’s not saying “I trust you” and then jumping in at the first sign of discomfort. Real empowerment means letting go of control — letting people make decisions you wouldn’t make, in ways you wouldn’t choose, and living with the consequences. It feels inefficient and risky, which is why most leaders avoid it. But empowered teams don’t wait. They don’t optimize for approval. They move on their own.

At its core, leadership is about people, not processes or goals. Processes give comfort. Goals give direction. People give energy. No process fixes a disengaged team. No goal motivates someone who doesn’t feel trusted. Most performance issues aren’t skill gaps — they’re belief gaps. Leadership lives in listening, in noticing who’s quiet, in understanding what’s unsaid. It’s human work, not mechanical work.

And that’s why real leaders are almost always low-key. They don’t announce leadership. They don’t dominate rooms or perform confidence. They speak less, listen more, and step in only when needed. They don’t need to be seen leading. Ironically, that’s exactly why people follow them.

I don’t believe great work comes from sudden breakthroughs. It comes from small, consistent improvements — kaizen. Tiny upgrades compound quietly. You don’t notice them day to day, but over time, the gap becomes obvious. This mindset keeps me grounded. I’m not chasing perfection or brilliance. I’m just trying to be a little better than yesterday, repeatedly, without drama.

I prefer async work for the same reason. In hindsight, it looks smart. In real time, it often feels dumber. You don’t get instant validation. You sit with half-formed thoughts longer than you’d like. But that slowness is a feature. It forces clarity. It rewards thinking over reacting. Async work exposes weak ideas and strengthens good ones — if you’re patient enough to let it.

I also don’t do my best work on things I don’t believe in. I need to care about the product, the brand, or the problem. Belief sharpens judgment. It raises the bar naturally. When I believe in what I’m working on, effort stops feeling like effort. It becomes responsibility. And responsibility produces better decisions than motivation ever does.

I’m deeply convinced that I’m only as good as the team I work with. Ubuntu captures this perfectly: I am because we are. No amount of individual talent compensates for a weak team. Great people raise your standards without saying a word. They make your thinking sharper, your blind spots obvious, and your work more honest. For me, work has always been about people first — everything else is secondary.

I don’t consider myself exceptionally smart. So I compensate with writing. Writing forces order. Order creates clarity. Clarity improves decisions. When I write, I slow my thinking down enough to see gaps, contradictions, and lazy assumptions. Writing doesn’t make ideas smarter — it makes them usable. And most of the time, usable beats clever.

Frequent introspection interferes with the mind’s natural intelligence, bogging it down.

When you observe your thoughts and actions too often, your mind gets cautious – almost defensive. To a point, it paralyzes you from thinking and acting.

It feels as if someone is watching over you and judging you constantly. Remember when the invigilator would look at your paper, how you would stop writing for a moment, losing your flow?

Allow your mind to think and act without being observed and judged at all times. Reflection is certainly important, but it should be occasional — maybe weekly is a good cadence.